Tag Archives: running confidence

Secrets to Success

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I’m taking a year off from the marathon, but I’m busy every week making my “next marathon goals”. I’ve been thinking about my secrets to success, hoping to uncover something that might take me to the next level. I’ll continue to update you as I think of more, but here are a few “secrets to success” that I came up with so far.

  • Believe in yourself. I wrote about this in my recent ME Monday, and I can’t emphasize it enough. You HAVE to believe in yourself to get anywhere near your goals. It seems like the most simple concept, but it can be the hardest for most runners (people).
johnny's running of the green

This is my confident/determined racing face.

  • Trust and commit to your training. Find a coach or training plan you can trust and commit to that training. Don’t worry about other people’s training. There are so many blogs, twitter updates, training logs to check out, but too much obsessing over others’ training can make you lose focus on your own training. Everyone is different. What works for me isn’t going to work for you. Sure, we can learn from each other, but you need to find a training plan you believe in and totally commit to it.
  • Do your training. Yes, are definitely times you need to skip a run, or rearrange your training schedule (I rearrange ALL THE TIME to fit my life and the way my body is feeling) but to be successful you have to do the training. It seems a little silly to mention this but it’s important. I remember arriving at college and my coach asked how much of the summer training plan I followed. When I looked at him puzzled and answered “all of it, what do you mean?” he was in shock. This is when I first realized that many people don’t follow their training plans. If you stick to a consistent schedule, you will be much closer to your goal.
family run shoes

Family run time. Getting the training done and having fun!

  • Have a support system. A support system can be family members, friends, or babysitters who watch your kids while you run. It can be buddies who meet you early every Sunday morning to make sure you get your long run done. It can be online friends who support your training and help you through the rough weeks. They can help you physically by running with you or cheering on the race course, or they can help you emotionally. Whatever the support system is, find one and it will make your running improve.

Those are my 4 top secrets to success! Do you have any to share?

ME Monday! Confidence

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I didn’t have confidence in my running for the first 28 years of my life. One of my racing “secrets to success” is that I’m at a point in my life where I truly believe “I’m fast” and “I work harder than most of the people out there”. It’s completely different than the way I used to feel.

I can pinpoint a few things from my past that made me think I wasn’t fast:

First, every year my siblings and I would enter a short (maybe 100 meter) race against all the other kids at my mom’s huge work picnic. My 3 siblings would almost always win. I finished mid-pack at best EVERY SINGLE YEAR. It made me feel slow, like I didn’t have the “family talent”.

Second, when I was going into my freshman year in high school, I raced a summer 5k. I had been training every day all summer. My sister was going into the 5th grade and never trained. She beat me! Ouch…

sisters wearing oiselle apparel

Love you sis! Best buddies!

Even with some success in high school and college, I always thought I was the “slow one in the family”. I stuck myself with a label and it was self-fulfilling.

The turn around happened when I was pregnant with my daughter. I started to think about what I wanted her to think of women, of me, and of herself. I got the urge to forget about labels and failure and try to do something great. When she was 5 months old, I entered my first post-pregnancy race. I had a 5k PR. Every time I raced, I improved. That fall, when she was 8 months old, I had a 23 minute marathon PR.

first post-pregnancy race

First post-pregnancy race, Ten Ugly Men. 2nd female and 5k PR!

These days, every time I race, I am excited. I still get nervous, and even a little scared of my competitors, but I turn it into fuel for the fire instead of crippling fear. I love it!